Gearbox co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford decided to tweet about a subreddit dedicated to pornography based on characters from Battleborn, his company’s latest game. That subreddit was then promptly showered with porn based on rival game Overwatch, along with threads mocking Pitchford.
If you’d rather read about something less sordid, here are the best indie games on PC. No? Fine, then.
The whole dreary saga began with the following tweet by Pitchford yesterday.
VERY NSFW, but I have received reports that BattlebornRule34 is now a thing on Reddit. LINK WITH CAUTION: https://t.co/laA7tR4Dgs
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) January 16, 2017
You’ll notice the subreddit eschews the obvious ‘BattlePorn’ for something more innocuous. Why rule 34? This is a meme which may have originated in a2003 webcomic, simply stating: “Rule #34: if it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.”
Anyway, the replies to Pitchford’s tweet are a dark, but darkly amusing, sinkhole of cynicism and scorn. Naturally the assumption is made that this is an especially desperate attempt to draw attention to Battleborn, which might charitably be described as ‘embattled’. There are screens of Battleborn on-sale at bargain basement prices. There are ‘burns’ suggesting more players are on the subreddit than playing Battleborn. Many of the digs come from Overwatch fans, whose favourite game released in the same window as Battleborn and was commonly seen as a competitor (despite their similarities having been overstated, in my view).
The subreddit itself is an even blacker abyss, now overtaken by threads mocking Pitchford and a deluge of Overwatch-based porn, thus adding injury to insult by subverting its whole purpose. Perhaps Overwatch fans see porn as “their” thing, after related searches ranked eleventh on Pornhub for the whole of 2016.
I can’t put it off any longer; yes, I suppose I should probably link you to the subreddit. Obvious warning: It’s very much NSFW. Here you go.
Sigh.